Life Love Healing Wellness Center works with individuals, couples and families in the Minneapolis, MN area including these counseling service areas: couples counseling, love addiction, sex addiction, codependency, Enneagram, healthy relationships, other addictions and more.

Without painful consequences for our dysfunctional behaviors recovery doesn’t usually occur. While we may want recovery generally speaking we have to be in enough pain to be wiling to do something about it. The first year of recovery is a dichotomy for many of us. It includes feelings of joy for being out of our addictive cycle, while at times, feeling worse.

1. Recovery is not a program of “I”.

a. The biggest mistake I see people make in early recovery is falling into the belief that they can do this alone. The truth is you can’t, and if you could, you would have by now. My clients are intelligent, successful people who have moved mountains in other areas in their lives, they have million dollar businesses, they do iron man’s, they create loving environments for their families while ignoring their own needs. If you could have fixed this by now you would have, and you do not have the answer to this problem. It is only through reaching out and engaging with others in recovery that we get release. Peace in recovery is not a solo act, the cravings show up, the desire to act out arises and your best tool is generally the telephone. Find 3 people who have what you want and start texting them, ask them to coffee, call them.

1. You never get “recovered”

a. When people come to me and say, “I’ve done my therapy” I want to wince. Similar to a personal trainer, if you stop exercising your body you lose your endurance and muscle. If you stop loving and working on yourself, you digress. Therapy done years ago, while helpful, does not equal a healthy emotional life in the present moment. Working a program means just that, you stay in touch with a power greater than yourself, and you know if you stop doing so that your life and relationships digress.

1. The problem always starts with addressing our own issues.

a. Many clients firmly believe the problem is with their partner. They will convince friends, family, lovers, and therapists that their partner is really the person to blame. The problem with this strategy is that it is not true. The problem always starts at home. You cannot change, mold or sculpt your partner into the person you believe you want them to be, even if you could you would still be unhappy. The real power is in our own changes, the problem does not reside with the world around us, it resides in our own inability to accept life on life’s terms.

1. If you are still struggling get a bigger problem.

a. This is arguably the best advice my sponsor ever gave me. My problems only seem large when I ask the wrong questions. Getting a bigger problem, generally for me means helping others, it is my ticket and your ticket to freedom. When we sit in our own feces our lives stink. Getting into action provides us with an outlet to get us outside of ourselves and our obsessive thinking. It allows us to see the world differently and see how we might be of service to others.

Most couples have the same fight over and over again. These seemingly endless, irresolvable, repetitions are the templates of our unsuccessful relating strategies. They are a vicious cycles that dig us in deeper and deeper, eating up, over the years, more and more of the goodwill and connection we start off with. Terry Real calls this a couple's "Bad Deal."

Where Does your Bad Deal Come From?

Our Bad Deals replay some aspect of the relationships we grew up in. Our parents fought, sometimes fair, sometimes not, sometimes there was no couple in our home growing up, we had only dad, mom or another significant parental figure. It's fair to say none of our caregivers were perfect, in fact many were far from it, within the confines of their primary relationships. If you look at your parents relationship style and think "I certainly don't want that" then you have some skills to learn. We recreate what we know, hence the relationships we observed growing up become our early love map and template for later life.

Are we doomed?

Only if we want to be. While we recreate what we know, we do so in hopes to heal it. When couples I work with become conscious of this it changes the script. The initial draw to a partner is from our core wounding meaning; we find someone who is similar enough to our parent or parents, who we can play out our unresolved childhood drama with. The flip side is this person is different enough from our parents, that we have a chance at cracking the code, and healing our wounds, if we get very aware.

Awareness Doesn't Just Happen

Have you ever heard the saying you are better at judging other's problems than you are at judging your own? Well it's true. Step one is accepting that you do not have the answers to your marital or relationship problems. In fact, the answers you have are how to reinforce and trigger the problems. These are all the answers you need when you work with a skilled therapist. My job is to help you see things from a new perspective. The world is no longer flat, you may not want to accept it but we will find the new answers over time together through different awareness building techniques. Willingness and openness also help the therapeutic process a long as well. Once we are in a place of not knowing what our problems solutions are, we become open to the possibility of healing.

Ultimately You Do The Work

As much as I would love to offer client's a magic solution, there isn't one. Reparenting ourselves starts with awareness, skill building and ultimately practice. Surrender is the first step in healing, when we stop fighting the urge to get what we never got from our parents, from our partner, we suddenly and profoundly become open to what is actually available to us.

Core Negative Image or CNI is our vision of our partners in their most difficult, irrational and least loving moments. When we move into "you always" or "you never" with our partner we are no longer arguing with each other but rather our caricatured version of our partner. When we move into this space with our partners we are in fact living out our early childhood wounding or false empowerment. This "Bad Deal" argument we consistently/continuously have with our partners represents a fight we never finished in childhood and that we didn't get growing up.

Without fail, each one of us chooses a mate who fits our unresolved issues. As Terry Real author of "The New Rules of Marriage" informs us that we all marry our "unfinished business."You may think the relationship does not bring up every hurt and anger you've ever carried inside, but it does. Doing so allows us to re-create the old struggle, to attempt to be heard, appreciated and most important to get the outcome that we never got as children. The hoax is in believing this will actually happen. As a result of our screwed up thinking in relationships, humans tend to see their partners through a lens of distortion. We attribute characteristics to our partners that set them up for failure through the manifestation of a core negative image. One benefit to couples knowing this is that they can start to use this information for good rather than what it is generally used for. Your Partners CNI can serve as your relationship compass, it will always point out the opposite direction from your goal.

The Following are five strategies outlined by Terry Real to help couples do this:

1. Make each other's CNI's explicit

2. Acknowledge the truth in each other's CNI's

3. Identify CNI-busting behaviors

4. Use CNI's as your compass

5. Set up dead-stop contracts.

These are strategies designed to be used and integrated in couples therapy. More to come in next weeks post!

Characteristics of Sex and Love Addiction (a partial list)

Having few healthy boundaries, we become sexually involved with and/or emotionally attached to people without knowing them.

Fearing abandonment and loneliness, we stay in and return to painful, destructive relationships, concealing our dependency needs from ourselves and others, growing more isolated and alienated from friends and loved ones, ourselves, and God.

Fearing emotional and/or sexual deprivation, we compulsively pursue and involve ourselves in one relationship after another, sometimes having more than one sexual or emotional liaison at a time.

We confuse love with neediness, physical and sexual attraction, pity and/or the need to rescue or being rescued.

We feel empty and incomplete when we are alone. Even though we fear intimacy and commitment, we continually search for relationships and sexual contacts.

We sexualize stress, guilt, loneliness, anger, shame, fear and envy. We use sex or emotional dependence as substitutes for nurturing, care, and support.

We use sex and emotional involvement to manipulate and control others.

We become immobilized or seriously distracted by romantic or sexual obsessions or fantasies.

We avoid responsibility for ourselves by attaching ourselves to people who are emotionally unavailable.

We are taught how to have intimacy and attachment by our family, specifically our primary caregivers; mom and dad. How our parents relate to us, our siblings, and each other, becomes very familiar to us as children. It creates a template for future relationships and intimacy. As we grow up and look for our own partner we are attracted, unconsciously or consciously to what we know and are familiar with.

Most of us did not get all the things we need when we needed them, many of us had large gaps in intimacy, relatedness, and very little guidance on how to identify our needs and find healthy ways to get them met. As a result of family of origin teachings, we learned to be quiet, alone, needless or wantless. By doing so we were rewarded. We were not told we were not a bother by our parents, and as a result of such conditioning we later unconsciously attract people with similar unconscious patterns of disconnected attachment.

The people we are attracted to usually are involved in one or more addictions. They may appear on the outside to take care of themselves because the are so “busy” and “intense”. In reality we choose the very people who don’t have the time or desire to provide us with healthy connections, those who do not prioritize the relationship over outside addictions such as work, alcohol, busyness, gambling, sex etc.

Abandonment in childhood by early caregivers in many forms fuels the message for love addicts that they are not worth being with. As a result love addicts find people who are walking away from them as very attractive. Attempts to resolve the issue of self-esteem are played out in relationship with the hope that what we could not solve as children-making the abandoning person connect with us - can now be achieved. We can finally balance the ledger and restore our own sense of preciousness, of worthiness by fixing what could not be fixed in our childhood.

The Way Out

Love addiction, like other addictions, does not have a “quick fix” we do not get better before we thoroughly examine our lives, our relationships and our realities. Boundaries are blurred, self-esteem is non-existent and acknowledging our needs and wants becomes almost impossible. We are sick, and powerless to improve our lives without the support and help of others. I have yet to see an addict recover on their own, we heal through experiences with others. The support of a therapist, 12-step groups and personal recovery planning are needed to successfully incorporate healthy love into our lives. Reprogramming our experience of relationships is necessary to have fulfilling, authentic love in our lives.

We either become alcoholics, marry them or both, or find another compulsive personality such as a workaholic to fulfill our sick abandonment needs.

We live life from the viewpoint of victims and we are attracted by that weakness in our love and friendship relationships.

We have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility and it is easier for us to be concerned with others rather than ourselves; this enables us not to look too closely at our own faults, etc.

We get guilt feelings when we stand up for ourselves instead of giving in to others.

We became addicted to excitement.

We confuse love and pity and tend to "love" people we can "pity" and "rescue."

We have "stuffed" our feelings from our traumatic childhoods and have lost the ability to feel or express our feelings because it hurts so much (Denial).

We judge ourselves harshly and have a very low sense of self-esteem.

We are dependent personalities who are terrified of abandonment and will do anything to hold on to a relationship in order not to experience painful abandonment feelings, which we received from living with sick people who were never there emotionally for us.

Alcoholism is a family disease; and we became para-alcoholics and took on the characteristics of that disease even though we did not pick up the drink.

We are able to distinguish love from pity, and do not think “rescuing” people we “pity” is an act of love.

We come out of denial about our traumatic childhoods and regain the ability to feel and express our emotions.

We stop judging and condemning ourselves and discover a sense of self-worth.

We grow in independence and are no longer terrified of abandonment. We have interdependent relationships with healthy people, not dependent relationships with people who are emotionally unavailable.

The characteristics of alcoholism and para-alcoholism we have internalized are identified, acknowledged, and removed.

We are actors, not reactors.

The Other Laundry List

To cover our fear of people and our dread of isolation we tragically become the very authority figures who frighten others and cause them to withdraw.

To avoid becoming enmeshed and entangled with other people and losing ourselves in the process, we become rigidly self-sufficient. We disdain the approval of others.

We frighten people with our anger and threat of belittling criticism.

We dominate others and abandon them before they can abandon us or we avoid relationships with dependent people altogether. To avoid being hurt, we isolate and dissociate and thereby abandon ourselves.

We live life from the standpoint of a victimizer, and are attracted to people we can manipulate and control in our important relationships.

We are irresponsible and self-centered. Our inflated sense of self-worth and self-importance prevents us from seeing our deficiencies and shortcomings.

We make others feel guilty when they attempt to assert themselves.

We inhibit our fear by staying deadened and numb.

We hate people who “play” the victim and beg to be rescued.

We deny that we’ve been hurt and are suppressing our emotions by the dramatic expression of “pseudo” feelings.

To protect ourselves from self punishment for failing to “save” the family we project our self-hate onto others and punish them instead.

We “manage” the massive amount of deprivation we feel, coming from abandonment within the home, by quickly letting go of relationships that threaten our “independence” (not too close).

We refuse to admit we’ve been affected by family dysfunction or that there was dysfunction in the home or that we have internalized any of the family’s destructive attitudes and behaviors.

We act as if we are nothing like the dependent people who raised us.

The Flip Side of The Other Laundry List

We face and resolve our fear of people and our dread of isolation and stop intimidating others with our power and position.

We realize the sanctuary we have built to protect the frightened and injured child within has become a prison and we become willing to risk moving out of isolation.

With our renewed sense of self-worth and self-esteem we realize it is no longer necessary to protect ourselves by intimidating others with contempt, ridicule and anger.

We accept and comfort the isolated and hurt inner child we have abandoned and disavowed and thereby end the need to act out our fears of enmeshment and abandonment with other people.

Because we are whole and complete we no longer try to control others through manipulation and force and bind them to us with fear in order to avoid feeling isolated and alone.

Through our in-depth inventory we discover our true identity as capable, worthwhile people. By asking to have our shortcomings removed we are freed from the burden of inferiority and grandiosity.

We support and encourage others in their efforts to be assertive.

We uncover, acknowledge and express our childhood fears and withdraw from emotional intoxication.

We have compassion for anyone who is trapped in the “drama triangle” and is desperately searching for a way out of insanity.

We accept we were traumatized in childhood and lost the ability to feel. Using the 12 Steps as a program of recovery we regain the ability to feel and remember and become whole human beings who are happy, joyous and free.

In accepting we were powerless as children to “save” our family we are able to release our self-hate and to stop punishing ourselves and others for not being enough.

By accepting and reuniting with the inner child we are no longer threatened by intimacy, by the fear of being engulfed or made invisible.

By acknowledging the reality of family dysfunction we no longer have to act as if nothing were wrong or keep denying that we are still unconsciously reacting to childhood harm and injury.

We stop denying and do something about our post-traumatic dependency on substances, people, places and things to distort and avoid reality.

Healthy Love ____ Allows for individuality and energizes____ Experiences both oneness and separateness ____ Brings out the best qualities in both partners____ Accepts endings____ Open to change and exploration____ Invites growth in both partners____ Experiences deep intimacy/feels safe____ Freedom to ask honestly for what is wanted____ Giving and receiving are one and the same____ Does not attempt to change or control partner____ Encourages self-sufficiency of partner ____ Accepts limitations of self and partner____ Is unconditionally loving ____ Can make and honor commitments____ Has high self-esteem and sense of well-being____ Trusts memory of beloved; enjoys solitude____ Expresses feelings spontaneously____ Welcomes closeness, risks vulnerability____ Cares, but can remain detached____ Affirms equal personal power

Now, add the scores for each list and divide by twenty to get a numerical average for each. Does your relationship exhibit more symptoms of trouble than of health?

Love Addiction Questionnaire

By Brenda Schaeffer

Write yes or no to the questions below. Any yes answer indicates some degree of unhealthy dependency or addiction. But, please, let go of blame or guilt. Love addiction seems to be a fact of life. Most, if not all, relationships give evidence of some of these signs. And there is both healthy and unhealthy dependency.

Do you ever feel as though you take care of others even though it hurts you?

Are you afraid or hesitant to talk about problems in your relationship?

When you do discuss problems, do you seem to get nowhere?

Do you feel like you are growing or want to grow and the relationship is not?

Do you say yes when you want to say no?

Do you rationalize away the things you don’t like in your relationship?

Do you ever feel like you both want and don’t want to be in the relationship?

Have you ever thought of leaving the relationship and been too afraid?

Do you or the other person every get close and then pull back?

Do you experience holding out in your relationship?

Does how the other person in the relationship feel change your mood or self-esteem?

Does the person’s behavior change your self-esteem or mood?

Do you enable, persecute or feel like a victim?

Do you struggle for power or control?

Do you try to change the other person or the other person try to change you?

Want your best relationship ever? Read on for ways to strengthen your relationships.

1. Make a Commitment to Growth: therapy, like the gym, works best if you go before the “cat hits the fan.” Seeing a therapist one time a month is an affordable way to do relationship maintenance. Think of it this way, we get the most joy from our relationships when they are good; it is fair to say, when they are not good, theopposite is true. Many successful businesses incorporate consultation, and the same can be said for successful marriages.

2. Turn towards Your Tribe: State your needs, be aware of bids for connection and respond to (turn towards) them. The small moments of everyday life are actually the building blocks of relationship

3. Know Your Tribe: know your partner and your children. Know their likes and dislikes. Create rituals together that are just for the tribe. You are only as strong as your weakest link, and if one of the members of your tribe is hurting, the rest are affected.

5. Manage Inner Tribe Conflict: conflict is a part of life, the sooner you learn how to have effective conflict, the better your relationships will operate. Every relationship has perpetual problems, and every relationship has solvable ones. The key is managing these areas in effective ways.

6. Create an Atmosphere of Trust: trust is paramount in all relationships. Providing your partner and family with an atmosphere that maximizes individual and group needs creates an unbreakable foundation for healthy relating.

7. Renew Commitment to your Tribe: we renew contracts, lease agreements and other legally binding relationships in our life without question of their necessity. Relationships should be the same. Revisiting your goals for the year, growth and family gains (i.e. emotional, physical, spiritual) can be an empowering way to recognize growth, and renegotiate change. Trust me. You won’t regret this!